


Modify

by fishpoets



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cake, Character Study, Gen, Haircuts, Healing takes time, Piercings, of sorts, self-expression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9072058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishpoets/pseuds/fishpoets
Summary: To change, to adapt.Hanzo gets his piercings over years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I _love_ Hanzo's new look, but it makes more sense to me if it isn't a really sudden change. So this is just me exploring that idea
> 
> Wrote it super quick so let me know if there's any glaring errors! :0

 

Hanzo had his own first quiet rebellion years before Genji.

 

Not that lobe piercings were particularly rebellious. Laughably tame, in fact, compared to some of the fashions Hanzo's contemporaries were wearing on the streets of Japan's great cities. But piercings didn't fit the image required of the Young Master, so to him the very idea of them felt illicit.

 

He considered it for weeks, toying with the thought of doing something simply because he wanted to. A choice of his own that wasn't dictated for him. The day he came home, seventeen years old and with the tiniest titanium studs in his ears, he almost shook with the thrill.

 

Hidden under the length of his hair, it took over a month to be discovered.

 

He was made to remove the studs on his knees in front of the elders. His stomach roiled. He'd expected their disappointment. He hadn't been prepared for the extent of his own shame. The disapproval lay heavy, sharp as a sword on the bared back of his neck.

 

His father, watching, said nothing.

 

They should have searched his belongings. The second pair he'd bought were tinted gold. Wearing them during the day was impossible, so he took to wearing them at night as he slept, to prevent the fistulas from closing.

 

It became a routine. Every night he shed his clothes, embroidered heavily with the dragons of his family, and slid the metal into his ears.

 

It was very late, almost early morning, when he returned to the castle following his first assassination on behalf of the clan. Duties done, he reported his success and excused himself to his rooms. He slid the doors shut behind him and sank down in front of his mirror. Put the studs in with shaking hands.

 

The gold glinted in the low lights. He pressed his fingers to the jewellery and felt a little more himself. As though the metal had pinned him back in place in his own skin.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't long before Genji's path started to wander. Hanzo's small defiance was easily forgotten in the face of his brother's growing indiscretions.

 

Over time, as he became deeper involved in the family businesses, Hanzo started to forget the reasons he had felt the need to defy in the first place. He lost sight of it somewhere, buried under the weight of expectation on his shoulders.

 

The day Genji came home, the rims of his ears studded with metal, he was forced to kneel in front of the elders. Hot anger twisted his face in an ugly scowl as he removed the pins one by one.

 

Hanzo, watching, said nothing.

 

* * *

 

The bridge piercing was more of a whim.

 

Bounty hunters had picked up his trail somewhere between Busan and Tianjin, forcing him into the city's heaving throng of humanity in the hopes of losing them. He bought a new coat and new boots, a cheap guitar bag to hide the conspicuous shapes of his bow case and quiver. He pulled his hair loose and covered it with a hat, grew out his beard, applied just enough make-up to smudge the contours of his face. But omnic recognition scanners were less easily fooled than human eyes. There was little else he could do to disguise his appearance.

 

He cursed himself as he weaved between the crowds.

 

Five years. He'd allowed the anniversary to distract him. Left Hanamura without appropriate care and attention. Foolish.

 

The neon sign of a piercing parlour caught his eye. With a quick check he wasn't being followed, he ducked inside.

 

Later, when he was sure of his safety, he examined himself in the mirror. The wounds smarted and stung, the metal lying heavy under his skin; a barbell through the bridge of his nose and a ring strung through his septum, hanging above his lip. It was startling how different he seemed. He almost didn't recognise himself.

 

He removed the septum two weeks later, huddled in the cargo-hold of a hyper-train speeding through central Asia. He disliked the way it shifted, irritating his sore skin, making him tickle and itch.

 

But he liked the bridge. The bridge, he keeps.

 

* * *

 

Hanzo cut his hair the day he abandoned the clan. He couldn't bring himself to do what he ought; instead of his stomach, he took the blade to his hair. The loose strands fell in a fan around his jaw. He dropped the severed length unceremoniously to the earth, an outcast.

 

There lay his honour, his duty to the house of Shimada. The closest thing he would get, now, to a grave, a place in his family's shrine.

 

The undercut is different. The clippers buzz against his skull. The hair falls in clumps, piece by piece, like shedding skin. As each drops he feels just a little lighter.

 

He keeps touching the back of his head. The stubble prickles under his fingertips but feels strangely soft and downy when he strokes it with the grain. Like tender new skin grown over a wound. He can't get used to it.

 

As the year draws close he finds himself in Dorado, wandering among the stalls in the marketplace. One of them is selling jewellery. Hanzo slows to a stop. He finds matching steel earrings and a barbell, solid and comforting in their weight. He takes out his retainer and slides the jewellery in.

 

Night falls. The town lights up in reds and greens and golds. People-watching, always with an eye open for danger, Hanzo's attention is grabbed by a flash of orange – a child, hands and nose pressed against the acrylic of a display case, gazing at a cake decorated with strawberries and sculpted icing. The sight fills Hanzo with nostalgia. He didn't expect to see such a thing so far from home.

 

The boy looks up at him as he draws near. Dark brown eyes grow wide.

 

Hanzo stops at the stall and buys a slice of the cake. The boy stares up at him. Hanzo glances down and holds out the cardboard plate, topped with thick, moist cake and rich red strawberries. He points at it, asks, “Did you want some?”

 

The child gapes, surprised to be addressed. He frowns and shuffles his feet, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “No tengo dinero...” he mutters, pouting.

 

Hanzo slides the boy a crisp note, puts his finger to his lips.

 

The boy grins as he takes it. “Thank you!” he exclaims, as if he's never seen such an extravagant gift. He buys his own slice in rapid spanish, then turns back to Hanzo and gestures at his face excitedly. “You look cool!”

 

Hanzo chuckles. “Thank you. Enjoy your Christmas.”

 

The boy laughs and nods. “¡Gracias!” Taking his cake, he tugs off his hat and waves with it as he leaves. “¡Adiós, señor! ¡Feliz Navidad!”

 

He runs off through the crowd, his shock of dark hair tufted upwards from taking off his hat, his orange scarf waving behind him, vibrant and bright. Hanzo smiles and walks away.

 

He eats his cake looking out over the ocean. His brother is out there somewhere. He was heading to Nepal, he said, when Hanzo last tracked him down. Spending the holidays with a friend.

 

Hanzo sucks the last traces of icing from his fingers and folds up the flimsy cardboard plate. The sea breeze dances cool and light on the bared back of his neck.

 

His brother is alive. He breathes it in.

 

For the moment, he finds it does not hurt.

 


End file.
